Gestalt: A New Idiosyncratic Introduction

There are also episodes from work with a client: The client could thus be seen to be a composite of a large number of people. I also include a more speculative chapter on the early self-development of this client, which I hope will further give body to the theory. I also include as appendices with permission some writing from two clients giving some flavor of how such a therapy appears from their perspectives. Self in Relation Russian. Buy the German version: This book tracks a particular understanding of self, philosophically, from research evidence and in its implications for psychotherapy.

At each step, the author includes first the theory he is working from, then the clinical implications of the theory, followed by some links to the philosophical outlook inherent in the theory, and finally a more extended case example. I keep talking about it months after having read it. She is getting very tired of this — but I just keep bringing up ideas from this book. This book is highly recommended for therapists of all stripes.

For Gestalt Therapists — Peter Philippson is one of our finest and most original thinkers. Edited by Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb and others. With chapters by Alessandra and Peter based on our conference presentations. Peter Philippson is known around the globe as a profoundly innovative, stimulating, and original thinker within the Gestalt community.

With this collection of previously published articles, readers finally get a chance to appreciate the range and depth of his work. In particular, the unique way he has constantly critiqued developments with reference to the roots of Gestalt Therapy. Philippson believes that the lineage of Gestalt therapy is insufficiently known, recognised, appreciated, or delighted in. With this stunning collection of papers he certainly redresses this balance.

If you thought the past was past and the history of the discipline was irrelevant, Philippson will change your mind forever. In my work in psychiatric institutions in the s I witnessed the dramatic restriction of encountering difference in an environment situated separate from the community.

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A rigid routine with restricted choice resulted in entrenched institutionalisation amongst patients. The architecture of our attitudes reveals itself in the architecture of our world. Healthy relating in gestalt is the ability to move along an awareness continuum in relation to our environment, health being our capacity for creative adjustment to new situations. It is in the interplay between environment and organism at the contact boundary when we encounter difference that growth takes place and for that to happen we need sufficient self and environmental support.

In healthy functioning figures that emerge from our ground are well defined with good form. Healthy functioning is in essence being attuned to our current environment in the here and now so that we can moderate our contact and integrate difference. We need contrast and difference to be aware of what is — fish do not know that they are wet! Ways of conceptualising a healthy gestalting process have been devised using a cycle of experience model.

A four-phased model by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman laid the ground for more recent developments of the construct that further break down the phases of experience Zinker, ; Joyce and Sills, ; Mann, The phases in mapping a healthy gestalt cycle are: Conceptualising experience in this way can be useful if we remain mindful that the person is not as separate from their situation as such maps implicitly suggest. Relational ruptures of all kinds affect how we contact the world. We all live through degrees of relational ruptures and in a good enough upbringing there will be sufficient reparation.

However, if relational repair is absent or minimal, the person creatively adjusts to that situation to manage the rupture. Such a process has its origins as a survival strategy. The Law of Pragnanz: Any conceptualisation of disturbance or health and how it is acquired through a gestalt lens is a conceptualisation that should be considered as belonging to the whole situation Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Every individuals ground is different therefore we all perceive our phenomenal world differently.

So-called dysfunction and disturbance resides in personal narrative, which forms in relation to our world and is shaped by the cultural ground upon which we stand. The world may be made of atoms but it is held together by stories. Sedimented creative adjustments that have formed over many years are invariably difficult to change, whether outdated or not.

Human beings are inherently creative but can use their creativity to deny, destroy as well as nourish their being. We all carry fixed gestalts and to challenge them can rock our ground. Just consider how difficult you may find it to break engrained habits. Fixed patterns of behaviour are under- pinned by a perceived lack of support for new ways of being. Often the person experiences a polarised split within himself that frequently has an accompanying internal commentary.

The top dog is fuelled by introjects, what we believe we should or ought to do, we can also think of it as the voice of our will. The underdog is more spontaneous, rebellious and impulsive. An example of this dialectic might be: I really must lose some weight and watch my drinking. What difference are a few beers going to make? You only live once. Each pole is self-righteously dismissive of the other consequently the individual remains stuck between contradictory viewpoints. Resolution of this conflict requires both poles developing an appreciation of the others position.

Disturbance is maintained by constantly circling around the conflict with no movement into action. I will therefore consider these two aspects together. Experimenting with new ways of being that have no guarantee of achieving a desired change can lead to a collapse into anxiety if we are not adequately supported.

Stuckness has its attractions. As we have seen an individual can creatively adjust in ways that served her in the past but no longer serve her in the present, perpetuating isolation, loneliness, relationship dissatisfaction. The often not-so- comfortable slippers of familiarity can blind us to what is. Hence, the founders of gestalt identified its only goal as being awareness. Two theories regarding change are discussed below; both emerged experientially through personal experience. The Zeigarnik effect unfinished business: The Zeigarnik effect is concerned with our need to complete the uncompleted.

It is not always possible to achieve completion in the actual situation, but if some form of resolution is not achieved we can become cluttered with incomplete gestalts that seek expression psychologically and physically. Bluma Zeigarnik was a Russian gestalt psychologist who studied the effects of unfinished business on individuals.

She conducted research that showed that waiters with incomplete orders would readily recall the order but as soon as it was complete it was forgotten, leaving space for the next gestalt. However, it was in her personal life where she gained the most profound insight into the effects of unfinished situations.

In her husband was arrested suddenly and she never saw him again. Zeigarnik found it increasingly distressing to live in the family home with her two children surrounded by memories of her husband, so she moved to nearby Moscow. Rather than her distress improving she became increasingly anxious as she avoided visiting places that held memories of her husband.

She made the courageous decision to return to the old family home. Having returned her anxiety began to ease. She improved further as she began to visit places around Moscow that held memories of her husband. By doing so she had creatively discovered a way of achieving closure.

The paradoxical theory of change: Beisser was an athletic, attractive man, a US ranked tennis player, when at 32 he was struck down with polio. Having been an active man he was paralysed, struggled to eat and needed an iron lung to breathe. Following a period of depression Beisser began to accept his condition and developed his theory based on his personal journey. His friends offer accounts of his popularity and generosity; he enjoyed a constant stream of visitors, his relationships reflecting his own self-acceptance.

Movingly, towards the end of his life Beisser said that were it possible to be given the choice of returning to the athletic man he once was and not develop paralysis he would decline. He had truly accepted who he was. Within this aim is the freeing of blocks that inhibit flow between figure and ground. If outdated creative adjustments are updated in relation to the current situation the client is in a position to develop support for new ways of being. However, our task in raising awareness does not lie solely with the individual and how he is impacted by his world.

Raising awareness involves exploration of a multi-directional relational matrix including raising awareness of how the client impacts the world, what is happening between the client and her world and how events are co-created. Healthy functioning is characterised by a free-flowing process of gestalt formation and completion along an awareness continuum in relation to the situation that faces us.

In such a process the person is fully in touch with their situation, the figures that emerge from their ground are bright and the relationship between figure and ground has fluidity. However, I would like to add a caveat. The struggle in attempting, and perhaps failing, to achieve free-flowing movement is itself growthful. A perpetual effortless flow in our relating, void of relational ruptures is probably closer to an image of hell than nirvana. In heightening awareness we seek to discover with our clients how they restrict the flow of experience between self and environment, for whilst this may serve to regulate uncertainty it can leave the person living in a shrunken world with limited possibilities.

These processes that were originally referred to as resistances have journeyed through a host of descriptive terms including: Or, you experience something which is outside and it belongs to your organism. Or again, you might experience no boundaries between your organism and your environment.

Or you might experience a fixed boundary with no fluid change. I have defined these processes individually but the reader needs to remain mindful that they interrelate and that all creative adjustments are co-created amongst multi-directional fields of relationships. The person anaesthetises himself from his environment.

Direct contact is avoided through indirect relating.

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This is noticeable in language, e. This verbal turning away from direct contact is likely to be matched bodily, e. Deflection is considered to be a sub-process of retroflection Polster and Polster, I step outside myself and watch myself in relation to the other rather than being fully present in relationship.

Spontaneity is blocked by control. Constructive use could be observing myself in discussion with a senior manager at work who is treating me unfairly before I make a considered response. The person swallows whole a way of being in relation to their environment resulting in the creation of an internalised rulebook of how to be in the world.

In this embodied process material is taken in without assimilation. There are many cultural introjects, gender specific introjects, parental, those that come from religious doctrine, education to name but a few. In projection there is a splitting process where part of the person is disowned and thrown out onto the environment.

Projection tends to occur when an aspect of the person does not fit with their self-concept. A person can disown her creativity or an emotion and project this onto another. A whole set of qualities and characteristics or a whole person can be projected onto another, such a process is usually described as transference.

The individual splits himself into the aspect that does and the aspect that is done unto, which may show in language, e. There are two forms of retroflection, in the first the impulse is turned against myself. Fritz Perls referred to an extreme manifestation of this process when he described suicide as the retroflective form of homicide.



The second is doing to myself what I need from the environment and is sometimes referred to as proflection. It manifests is such behaviours of self-soothing.

Nature Heals: The Psychological Essays of Paul Goodman

Retroflection usually requires considerable internal energy; the person aggresses on themselves rather than the environment. Geographically the term confluence describes two rivers meeting and their merger into one. This sums up the process when confluence is discussed regarding human relating — the person merges with their environment. The aforementioned moderations describe one point on a continuum. No area of the continuum is healthy in itself, for example, a mother may forget herself when caring for an infant and this will be needed at times in that situation.

From a gestalt field perspective self-awareness develops between contact boundaries not behind them.

Introduction to the Gestalt Journal Press Edition of

An example of continuums of contact and withdrawal with reference to MacKewn are outlined below in Figure 8. Theoretical maps and models can be useful but they are not the territory, we perceive relationship not processes or isolated things. When deciding whether to work with a particular client it is not a case of whether gestalt therapy is suitable, but what type of gestalt approach is indicated and whether the therapist has the ability, experience and personal resources to work with this person.

Gestalt therapy has been inaccurately caricatured as a confrontative therapy suitable only for clients with plenty of ego-strength. A judgment of a person as unsuitable for gestalt therapy will say as much about the assessor as it will the client. Questions for the therapist in the selection process revolve around what is needed and whether she can offer a sufficiently adhesive or solvent approach, together with an ability to slide along an adhesive—solvent continuum in the service of the client.

It is usual practice to have an initial mutual assessment session s to assess whether client and therapist feel that they can work together. Below I offer a less than comprehensive summary of what a good enough match may depend upon: If within this relationship I can provide a sufficient balance between holding and challenge.

If as a therapist I feel that I have sufficient skills, support and availability to work with this client. Does this client press triggers for me in relation to my history? If so can I bracket that material sufficiently to be present for the client? Are there experiences in my history that may enhance therapy for the client? Is there a sense of connection between the client and myself?

If there is a struggle with connection can we work with it? Do I know someone who would probably be better suited to working with this client? Do I have sufficient specialist knowledge to work with this client? Might couples therapy or group therapy be more appropriate for this client? Training to be a gestalt psychotherapist is a long process that does not end upon qualification. Trainee therapists are required to be in on-going personal therapy throughout their training and many choose to remain in therapy beyond.

We need to practise what we preach in owning our vulnerabilities and shortcomings as well as our strengths and abilities. We need to develop an awareness of our shadow qualities and seek to stretch the continuums between our polar abilities. We need resilience and to be able to support ourselves healthily in our own nourishing relationships outside our work as therapists. Above all we need a commitment to be the best therapists we can be.

To do so requires self-awareness, or to be more specific self-in-relation awareness, to understand ones reactions and separate out the reactive from the proactive. Even then one of the most important skills for any gestalt therapist is the ability to be uncertain and stay with uncertainty.

Nature Heals: The Psychological Essays of Paul Goodman -- Introduction by Michael Vincent Miller

If one of these philosophies is not practised then gestalt therapy is not being practised. In describing a situation it needs to be referred to in relation to its perceiver. The person and the environment are viewed as a single constellation of independent factors with all behaviour embedded in a context. Gestalt therapists are interested in the process of how we organise ourselves during our transition from one situation to another. The way in which we map our landscape depends upon our need at that moment in time. A client may persistently perceive herself in a negative light due to past experience that now colours her present experience and future expectations.

Using the Cultural Formulation Interview to Support Recovery

Areas in which she feels incompetent become figural for her as she patterns events in a way to confirm her self-perception, for instance, a mother is critical of herself for not being fully alert at all times when attending to her infant whilst ignoring her good parenting. Although the client may perceive a problem as being in her it is always of her situation. We cannot work with an entire situation, a field so wide to encompass the clients past present and future in relation to their world. Holding a field perspective is a difficult paradigm shift.

However, to practise gestalt therapy that shift needs to be made. Neither of us was wrong. The therapeutic relationship is configured to gain an understanding of how clients make sense of their world. In this emergent process what the person reaches out to and how they reach out is of interest to gestalt therapists.

If the client moves on quickly the figure may not fully form, something that is common in anxiety states. Conversely the client can become figure bound, as a forthcoming exam, a family members illness or thoughts of self- harm dominate to the exclusion of available supports. To fully appreciate the way in which another makes sense of the world we need to suspend, as far as possible, our experience of the world. The phenomenologist Edmund Husserl designed a three-step process to transcend our experience of the world, the three steps being: Bracketing — The therapist sets assumptions and expectations of how things are or should be aside, literally bracketing off the way she interprets the world.

Description — Rather than seeking explanations the therapist seeks description. Experience is carried in the body but it is for the client to put this into words. Horizontalisation — Anything the client says or does is afforded equal significance. The recounting of a traumatic experience is initially considered no more or less significant than say, the client shuffling in their chair. This is the phenomenology of being and being-in-the-world concerned with how we make sense of our existence. The starting point for existentialism is that life does not have meaning in itself, but we construct meaning, ultimately leaving us alone with the meaning we make.

The paradox is that although I need others to exist I exist alone with my reality. Existentialism is characterised by uncertainty, the only certainty being that life will end. Ultimately we have the choice of whether to live authentically or inauthentically, a choice broadened with increased awareness. In I—It relating we are objectifying and more concerned with doing than being. It is the flow of connection and separation between these poles that we pay attention to with our clients. However, let us not lose sight of the value of I—It relating for we need to do as well as be.

But whoever lives with only that is not human. It is up to every individual gestalt therapist to find their way of integrating these philosophies into their work. Individuals with a broad range of relational styles practise gestalt therapy. Some therapists are highly experimental and dramatic using plenty of physical movement, whilst others engage more verbally and are more contained in their relational style. Gestalt therapists can vary greatly in the degree in which they self-disclose, use creative materials, use humour to name but a few areas. What is of paramount importance is that the therapeutic relationship is shaped in the service of the client.

Whatever the relational style of the therapist we are in the business of assisting the client in discovering meaning rather than interpreting. Hence, the significance of tears is for the person who is crying, the meaning of muscular tension is for the one who is tense, the importance of avoiding eye contact is for he who looks away.

Paying attention to her reactions to the client can elicit information about how the client may relate in the world as long as the therapist is vigilant in separating out her proactive material and holds any hypotheses lightly Mann, With a focus on the between of the relationship she will shuttle back and forth between how the client makes and breaks contact and how she is adjusting her level of contact. She hypothesises that her client may be armouring himself against expressing an emotion and having seen similar behaviour in him before wonders whether this is habitual, perhaps underpinned by introjected beliefs case formulation.

She may suggest that the client makes eye contact and breathes more deeply to counter deflective behaviour and increase contact, thereby providing an opportunity to undo retroflection and build ground to explore possible underlying introjects. This is an example of a therapeutic strategy at a micro level that will be influenced by the prevailing field conditions see above, Section 8. At a macro level an overarching fluid strategy will be held, which will include how solvent or adhesive the therapist needs to be with the client.

Particular strategies will need to be developed in relation to working with risk see Mann, ; Joyce and Sills, Whatever the experiment consensus should be reached between therapist and client with the experiment graded appropriately — we learn to swim before diving off the high board! Devised by Fritz Perls to complete unfinished business, integrate disparate parts or polarised qualities in the person and bring archaic influences into the here and now, it has inaccurately been portrayed as a way of characterising gestalt or as a quick way of facilitating change.

As with any experiment the figural new way of being, witnessed by a caring therapist, falls into the ground of the therapeutic relationship and it is in that ground that lasting change takes place. This is concerned with our perception of our world and our behaviours and actions. Fluid movement across these three areas is deemed healthy but how this manifests will depend upon the health or otherwise of the situation. I see … outer zone , I feel … inner zone , I imagine … middle zone. In expanding awareness we might work with polar qualities in the client in relation to self- concept Zinker, such as hardness—softness, fluidity—rigidity, caring—ruthless, topdog— underdog polarity or in relation to dimensions of contact.

If a client disowns her shadow qualities with support she can be assisted by the therapist to discover what richness may emerge from re-owning them.